The situation at the Bundy Ranch, where armed militiamen and “Patriots” are camped out, has deteriorated so badly that competing factions apparently drew weapons on one another during heated arguments.

The right-wing media tried to sell Americans on the idea that the antigovernment “Patriots” and militiamen who gathered to block the roundup of Cliven Bundy’s illegally grazing cattle in Nevada were well-meaning lovers of liberty. However, Bundy’s most ardent defenders have revealed themselves to be a volatile collection of hotheaded, paranoid men (and a few women) with big egos and even bigger guns.

The situation at the Bundy ranch, where armed militiamen and “Patriots” are camped out, has deteriorated so badly that competing factions apparently drew weapons on one another during heated arguments.

Talking Points Memo on a mining company’s quelling protests using a paramilitary force rented from a real estate mogul:

There’s been a battle royale in Wisconsin over an effort to establish a big iron mining operation near Lake Superior, to be owned and operated by a company called Gogebic Taconite. Protests have been staged since the operation got started.

But people started to get freaked out over the weekend when Gogebic brought in what the Wisconsin State Journal calls “masked security toting semi-automatic rifles and wearing camouflaged uniforms.”

I started looking into the security company behind the paramilitaries, an outfit called Bulletproof Securities out of Scottsdale.

The Bulletproof website lists all sorts of security/paramilitary type services. They even have their own ‘border security force’, which is something I thought the federal government took care of.

Bulletproof can also provide “a QRF (quick reaction force) tactical unit to secure a manufacturing plant during a heated worker strike.” The company’s website provides an extremely wide range of services and suggests it has a huge amount of equipment to provide Quick Reaction Force services “in ALL conditions.”

Anyway, if you look around the site, Bulletproof clearly has a pretty big arsenal and a reasonably sized paramilitary at the ready to help you.

The New York Times examines the booming business of selling preparedness for societal breakdown, with more and more Americans worried that civilization may be on the verge of collapse in the wake of major hurricanes, blackouts, financial crisis, Iran building the bomb, et cetera. The irony is that the movement’s proponents are so obsessed with “getting ready” for the end of everything that in a sense they have already given up on our world:

The preparedness industry, always prosperous during hard times, is thriving again now. In Ron Douglas’s circles, people talk about “the end of the world as we know it” with such regularity that the acronym Teotwawki has come into widespread use.

The goal isn’t just to sell to the same old preparedness crowd. Red Shed wants to attract liberals and political moderates to a marketplace historically populated by conservatives and right-wing extremists. It’s about showing the gun-toting mountain man in his camouflage and the suburban soccer mom in her minivan that they want the same thing: peace of mind.

The ethical quandary we now face: can we afford not to have Homeland Security ethnically profile conservative whites? The Atlantic Wire reports:

In a disturbing report out of Georgia, prosecutors say four U.S. soldiers plotted to overthrow the government and assassinate President Obama. The soldiers allegedly bought $87,000 worth of “guns and bomb-making materials and plotted to take over Fort Stewart, bomb targets in nearby Savannah and Washington state, as well as assassinate the president.”

The plot was apparently uncovered in relation to a murder case surrounding the killing of in December. On Monday, Pfc. Michael Burnett, one of the accused soldiers, plead guilty to manslaughter and gang charges in the murder case. Burnett told a Long County judge that Roark, who had just left the Army, knew of the militia group’s plans and was killed because he was ‘a loose end.’

Had it passed, Wyoming would have developed a contingency plan for the collapse of the United States — possibly including the purchase of an aircraft carrier, enacting a military draft, amassing a standing army for protection from surrounding states, and issuing of an alternate currency. The Casper Star-Tribune reports:

The Wyoming House of Representatives on Tuesday voted down legislation to launch a study into what the state should do in the event of a complete economic or political collapse in the United States. House Bill 85, which has received national media attention in recent days, was rejected 30-27 in a final House vote.

The bill would have created a state-run government continuity task force, which would study and prepare Wyoming for potential catastrophes, from disruptions in food and energy supplies to a complete meltdown of the federal government. The task force also would have looked at the feasibility of Wyoming issuing its own alternative currency.

Everyone gripes about how ridiculous it is when security checks for bombs inside the shoes of 75-year-olds at the airport…but it turns out that Grandpa in fact is a menace. Via the Daily Mail:

Federal agents arrested four suspected members of a Georgia militia on charges of plotting attacks with toxins and explosives against unnamed government officials. The four – all over 65 years old – who authorities arrested on Tuesday, were expected to appear in federal court in Gainesville on Wednesday afternoon.

Court documents state that 73-year-old Frederick Thomas told others he intended to model their actions on the online novel Absolved, which involves small groups of citizens attacking U.S. officials.

Thomas is part of a group that also tried to obtain an unregistered explosive device and sought out the complex formula to produce ricin, a biological toxin that can be lethal in small doses, according to a federal complaint.

This takes elaborate ruses to new level. Californian Yupeng Deng used uniforms, IDs, basic training exercises, and military parades in a scam tricking Chinese immigrants into believing they had joined a “special forces reserve” of the U.S. military. The New York Times reports:

To the Chinese immigrants he recruited, Yupeng Deng was known as Supreme Commander. He offered them United States Army uniforms, conducted training exercises on Sundays, led marches in municipal parades and promised a path toward American citizenship.

The uniforms were real, but Mr. Deng’s U.S. Army/Military Special Forces Reserve unit was a sham, the authorities said.

On Wednesday, Mr. Deng, 51, was arraigned in Los Angeles County Court on 13 felony charges related to the fake military operation, which concentrated on Chinese immigrants, eager to become American citizens, in the San Gabriel Valley, east of Los Angeles.

More than 100 immigrants paid upwards of $300 to join the bogus unit, the authorities said, and $120 to renew their memberships each year.

The message of this television spot for Pamela Gorman, running for a seat in Arizona's state congress, seems to be, "Vote for me, or I'll shoot you." It actually seems like an imitation of militia/Al-Qaeda training videos, but with more puns thrown in -- she has my vote.

Writing for Religion Dispatches, Mark Juergensmeyer claims that a violent Christian extremist movement is growing in the United States. (The murder of Kansas abortion doctor George Tiller and the Hutaree militia’s pipe bomb plot would be two examples.) Is his argument legitimate?

At the extreme right wing of Dominion Theology is a relatively obscure theological movement that Mike Bray found particularly appealing: Reconstruction Theology, whose exponents long to create a Christian theocratic state. Bray had studied their writings extensively and possessed a shelf of books written by Reconstruction authors. The convicted anti-abortion killer Paul Hill cited Reconstruction theologians in his own writings and once studied with a founder of the movement, Greg Bahnsen, at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi.

Rev. Paul Hill, Rev. Michael Bray, and other Reconstructionists—along with Dominion theologians such as the American politician and television host Pat Robertson and many other right-wing Christian activists today—are postmillenialists.

Not-guilty pleas were entered Wednesday in federal court in Detroit on behalf of eight militia members accused of plotting to kill police officers as part of a revolt against the federal government.

“This is not about militias or a group of militias, but about a group conspiring against the U.S. who have shared beliefs that the New World Order elitists are in charge and seek to have one world government and is working with the U.S. government,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald Waterstreet said in his opening statement. “Any law enforcement officer is a foot soldier for the New World Order.”

None of the eight defendants spoke during the proceeding. The seven men wore orange jumpsuits and the lone woman a green jumpsuit; the legs of each were shackled. Each stood silently next to their court-appointed attorneys as the judge entered pleas of not guilty on their behalf.

A ninth person, Thomas Piatek, 46, of Whiting, Indiana, is being held in Indiana.